Processes and outcomes in networked classroom interaction: Defining the research agenda for L2 computer-assisted classroom discussion

The present paper focuses on the use of one networked technology, namely synchronous computer-mediated interaction, in the second language (L2) classroom.The scope is intentionally limited to research concerned with evaluating the potential benefits of computer-assisted classroom discussion (CACD) in terms of second language acquisition (SLA) theory.The findings stemming from the existing body of L2 research on CACD are critically examined and a number of methodological suggestions are offered for future research on CACD.It is suggested that in addition to analyzing language outcomes by means of well-motivated measures of L2 use and L2 acquisition, a multiplicity of data sources be used in CACD research, so as to be able to document the processes learners actually engage in when interpreting and carrying out CACD tasks.A process-and task-driven research agenda for L2 CACD is proposed with the ultimate goal of describing the nature of language, learning, and interaction fostered in networked synchronous communication and to ascertain which features of CACD may or may not be relevant to the processes involved in second language acquisition. NETWORKED CLASSROOM INTERACTION AND SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNINGFrom drill-and-practice software, to word-processing programs, to network and hypertext software, the gradual integration of technology in classrooms over the last twenty years has tended to mirror the technological developments and limitations of each computer era as well as, more importantly, the theories of learning and instruction developed by scholars and construed in teachers' actual practices.Thus, the introduction of networked technologies in education coincided with a shift in education from an interest in cognitive and developmental theories of learning to a social and collaborative view of learning (cf.Hawisher, 1994).Since the early 1990s, national and international networks, on the one hand, and local area networks (LANs), on the other, have been widely used for instructional purposes within social and critical education approaches.The use of electronic mail, bulletin boards, or discussion lists on worldwide networks such as the Internet enables learners and teachers to access and share information in a time-and space-independent fashion.By contrast, the instructional use of LANs, which link computers in a laboratory or a classroom to each other, has introduced the possibility of real-time, synchronous, many-tomany written discussion by a whole class or by smaller groups within the class (Warschauer, 1996b).Both technologies underscore a view of learning as a collaborative act that happens in a social and political context, with learners and teacher working together in the new medium of networked interaction.Some scholars have suggested that the era of hypertext and networked communication that started burgeoning in the mid-1990s signals the need for an expanded view of literacy: Computers can no longer be seen as a surrogate of the teacher or an intelligent tool in the hands of the student, but as a new medium that has changed the ways in which we write, read, and possibly think (Selfe, 1989).Without committing to such a radical analysis of the role of technology on literacy practices, I would agree with Herring (1996), Selfe and Hilligoss (1994), and others that we need research on computers and education that not only extols the pedagogical and social virtues of computer technology but also determines exactly Lourdes Oretga Methodological Issues in Research on Learner Computer ... Language Learning and for a discussion of the concomitant social epistemic theory of writing, see Berlin, 1987).In foreign language classes, Daedalus began to be used also in the University of Texas at Austin in the early 1990s, but the orientation was more on target-language practice than on the development of writing skills.In the last six years, a small number of FL studies (and most recently ESL studies) have reported on the use of InterChange/Daedalus in CACD in various FL classes in universities in the United States, typically for general classroom discussion purposes rather than in connection with L2 writing instruction.How does CACD work?During a typical Daedalus/InterChange session in the computer lab, each student sits in front of a computer terminal and is free to type in messages that can be sent by clicking on the "send" button on the screen.Sent messages appear on the upper half of all individual screens, displayed in the order in which they were sent and automatically identified with the name of the sender.All class members can read each other's comments at their own pace by scrolling up and down the sent-messages window, and they can write messages at their own leisure without interfering effects (freezing, etc.) from incoming messages.